


Lotus Breeze.

by KiraDillinger



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Fluff, Human AU, Romance, a lot of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-10-22 14:09:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 12,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10698618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiraDillinger/pseuds/KiraDillinger
Summary: Lapis and Peridot rent an apartment and study in university (not dating yet), and one day Steven appears to live in the same apartment with them. Peridot is happy, Lapis is nervous, Steven thinks “why are you guys not dating?”. The work is similar to sketches from their life. (And Peri’s attempts to confess her feelings for Lapis)





	1. 1.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first attempt to write in English. Hope you'll like it!

Steven always thought that there was a lot of unusual and unforgettable in his life, and that he could tell with his own confidence that he had seen a lot.

Crossing the threshold of his new home, he senses with the back of his spine that everything is just beginning, and a new school away from the usual environment - less what to expect. At least because he will have to live in the same house with Peridot, which he hadn’t seen for several years, but which suddenly reacted positively to the idea that he would live with her. Her apartment is within walking distance from the new school, and although Greg can afford to buy his son a whole apartment, he still decides that Steven will better live with old friend, somehow socializing.

Peridot just says that it will be cheaper and funny, and doesn’t even bother to talk to her neighbor before that. Lapis, who has been living with Peridot for a couple of months, doesn’t perceive the appearance of a teenager very well.

\- You could have WARNED, - she snarls, slapping her hand on the table, and Steven shudders and looks with puppy eyes. - Your tongue wouldn’t fall off.

Peridot rubs her eyes under glasses and sighs. With Lapis you will never guess whether she will be nice all day or want to kill you since the morning.

\- Steven, this is Lapis, she lives in that room. She is usually not seen and not heard, but today she crawled out… For some reason…

Lapis throws a spoon, and it lands behind Peridot.

\- Don’t misinform people.

Steven smiles and rubs his head absently. He saw a lot of strange people, and thinks that he can get along with Lapis, if it is good to try. He gets along with Peridot, the nature of which is also quite difficult, but with which they found a common language almost from the first meeting, despite the difference in age as much as five years.

Lapis snorts and hides in her room, clapping the door loudly, and Peridot imitates “don’t misinform, blah blah” and puts the teapot, which in a couple of seconds begins to rustle loudly in a disgusting way.

\- You probably like some special sort of tea, but personally I have only coffee, and Lapis has a green one, so you should buy your own. - Peridot takes out the mugs, and a second later, with a grin, turns to Steven, who is crouching in his backpack. - Although, what am I talking about. You probably already have it.

Steven laughs and snatches a couple of bags of flower tea from a backpack and a pack of marmalade bears.

\- Your father is practically a millionaire, and you use tea bags. I won’t stop wondering about your family.

Peridot puts a mug of boiling water and a sugar bowl before him, and Steven pours a handful of marmalade into the mug and throws a teabag, which immediately smells pleasantly with flowers, whose name Peridot can’t remember in any way. She frowns when Steven pours another couple of spoons of sugar, but says nothing, sitting next to him. It’s not time for coffee yet, and it’s better not to take tea (especially green) from Lapis.

\- He somehow agreed that living in a van with so much money isn’t a good idea, and moved to an apartment.

Steven takes a sip of tea and squinting contentedly. Peridot looks at him and tries to find out in him the teenager she saw last time a few years ago, even before entering the university. He grew up on two heads, he is taller than her and, look at him, he even pumped up some muscles.

And he still smiles carelessly and looks like the most naive being in the world.

\- Well, I hope we won’t quarrel. More precisely, you won’t quarrel with Lapis, because you and I don’t quarrel at all.    

\- You somehow get along with her … - Steven shrugs and watches Peridot’s face change from surprise to barely perceptible embarrassment.

\- I just sometimes do homework for her so that she won’t be kicked out of the university. She entered programming just like that, didn’t particularly get involved, and now she doesn’t want to go back to her parents. Well, and I don’t want to kill my nerves to get along with another new neighbor. Lapis can seem nervous, but she’s a good person.

\- But you’re not going to tell her that in person?

\- Hell no.

They laugh and spend the evening after questioning each other about how they lived at the time when they didn’t see each other or communicate; Lapis doesn’t appear long enough, and when she does, she sees in her pack of tea a new, different bag, and can’t help smiling. The first step to winning her heart goes quite well.


	2. 2.

The landlady of the Peridot's apartment allowed to create anything in it, as long as there is no delay in payment, and Peridot gives the "go-ahead" to Steven, so that he can change everything to his taste, as he wants. Steven happily pulls a drill out of the closet and all the next morning he makes fastenings for a hammock in the ceiling, in which he plans to sleep, so as not to push Peridot out of her couch.

  
\- You too? - Peridot throws up her eyebrows, watching how happy Steven lies in the hammock he brought with him. - Lapis also has a hammock in her room. How can you not fall from it?

  
Lapis, glancing into the room, nods approvingly to Steven and snorts in the direction of Peridot.

  
\- Special skill. You didn't grow tall enough to it. And you wont grow up, probably...

Peridot flashes and turns sharply to the Lapis, takes a step closer and looks upwards, face to face. Lapis is as tall as Steven, one and a half heads above Peridot, and Peridot every time rages with jokes about her growth, which Lapis always says when a chance is given. It's like a special ritual, Lapis doesn't joke about this only when she's not at home, and Peridot is undermined and raged every time.

  
\- Listen, you ... - Peridot hisses through her teeth, and Lapis smiles cheekily and pretty, looking eyes in the eyes. The distance between them is dangerously close, only a couple of centimeters, but no one increases the distance, and it seems to Steven that this doesn't look like a simple quarrel between neighbors at all.

  
\- Evil dwarf, - Lapis says, knowing well that this will work like a red rag on a bull.

  
Peridot gasps with indignation, and Lapis, laughing, slips into her room, closing the latch exactly at the moment when Peridot hits the door and swears like hell.

  
\- I just hate you, - she growls, listening to Lapis's laughter outside the door.

  
\- I love you too, - Lapis says from the other side.

  
Steven seems that Peridot isn't exactly angry, because she always didn’t care about the jokes, and he never saw her wanting to kill someone.

  
Peridot threatens Lapis with a very brutal reprisal and refusal to help her with homework, and returns to the room, where Steven, lounging in a hammock, notices with a smile the reddened tips of her ears.

  
\- Do you guys often swear like that? - he asks, and Peridot nervously grins and takes off her glasses.

  
\- Almost every day. You stand on her side - I'll throw you to hell.

  
\- What a nightmare.


	3. 3.

Steven can observe, and in a month of life with Peridot in one room he found out a lot of seemingly useless, but funny information. For example, that Peridot never goes to bed before midnight, and doesn't drink coffee before six in the evening and later in the afternoon. That she manages to stay up late, when Steven himself is falling asleep, and get up early, without a series of endless ringing alarms.

\- Are you a human being?  - he asks her when he finds out that she didn't go to bed at all, and feels great, even after spending a whole day at the university, while he sleeps after six lessons at school.

Peridot with a very proud look corrects her glasses, behind which red from fatigue eyes are visible, and spreads her hands.

\- Probably.

Passing by, Lapis yawns and rolls her eyes. Lapis sleeps twelve hours a day, and it's not enough for her, and she is not seen at all on the weekends, and Peridot advises Steven not to make noise if he doesn’t want to be killed with a special cruelty. On weekends, Lapis only sleeps, leaving the room only to eat, and, Steven observes, that if there is no food, then she simply leaves back, staying hungry. Therefore, Peridot usually cooks at the weekend, perfectly aware that sleepy Lapis wont do it.

They cook, by the way, by turns, and Steven is surprised to realize that he has never heard a swearing about "I don't eat it", they somehow manage to do at least that quietly and measuredly. They make each other tea or coffee just like that, without asking and questions, and put the perfect amount of sugar. When Peridot does homework for two - Lapis sits next to her, even if it's too late, she looks carefully at what Peridot does, even if she doesn't understand, because Peridot always sits down for all tasks near the night when the energy of Lapis ends. Lapis slaps her on the shoulder, says "thank you" and goes to her room, bumping into all corners on the road, because her eyes begin to close at eleven in the evening, when Peridot has the peak of productivity. Peridot grumbles and drinks coffee, and Steven says that from such an amount of coffee a normal person would have died long ago. Peridot snorts and says the same thing about the amount of sugar that Steven pours into tea.

Steven notices amazing, cute little things between these two, but for his own safety he is silent and just observes. Although one day he doesn't stand up and directly asks if they don't date secretly from him.

Peridot blushes to the very tips of her ears, and Lapis hides a smile in the sleeves of her long home shirt.

\- Don’t be silly, - Peridot mutters, and spends the rest of the evening playing shooters, trying not to look anyone in the face.  Lapis, trying not to laugh, responds to Steven that she isn't interested in evil dwarves, and Steven seems that everything is completely different.

And Steven continues to watch them.


	4. 4.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's so funny to translate it. Just like rewriting xD  
> Thank you for your support!  
> If you see some mistakes - please, tell me^^

When Steven comes home with the girl, telling his roommates that they just came to play in the console and won't make noise, Peridot literally pulls Lapis out of her room and drags her outside, saying something about important business and stuff.

Lapis notices surprised teenagers and laughs, allowing Peridot to take her outside. It's nice there, and November, it seems, doesn't yet understand that winter is coming soon and it has to be a bit colder. Lapis wraps herself in a scarf and snorts at Peridot, who hurried out of the house, threw only a light jacket and didn't even lace her sneakers.

\- And why was there such a rush? - Lapis asks, and Peridot beams, trying to tie the laces and not to crash into the nearest puddle.

\- He has a girlfriend! - Peridot answers happily. - You just don't understand, he always was a little... Differed from the rest of the children, and it was difficult for him. And then there's the move, the new school... I was worried about him. And I won’t believe that they are "just friends".

Lapis chuckles.

\- Wow. You're just like a caring elder sister. And how much time do you want to give them?

Peridot shrugs and looks up at the gloomy sky.

\- Do you have any business?

\- I don't, but you, like, have homework.

\- Yours, by the way.

Lapis shamelessly makes a helpless gesture. Peridot sighs, but she is used to this, it's funny and, as a rule, has its advantages. As, for example, now.

\- Let's go for a walk. If it rains, we'll wait in Starbucks.

\- Should I regard this as a date?"

\- Yes, damn you.

 ***

At home, Steven puts a favorite fighting game on the console and passes the controller to a girl, who, it seems, sees it for the first time. Steven laughs and explains how to play.

Connie Maheswaran not only have never had a console, she didn't even have friends, because of endless moving and strict upbringing, and she is sure that if her parents even find out that she is at home with a guy they don't know, they will start taking her to school and taking her home, as if she's not sixteen, but five.

But for some reason she believes Steven and can't resist his kind smile.

\- And where did your roommates escape?

Steven shrugs, and, biting the tip of his tongue, makes a memorized combination on the controller, forcing the fighter on the screen to do very cruel things with the enemy. 

\- Dunno. Maybe they just went for a walk. I think you will make friends. They are nice.

Connie remembers her mother's phrases that the one who paints his or her hair in incomprehensible colors and pierces ears in all places can't be good at all, and Connie thinks that it would be nice to meet them, since she had already begun to break the rules.

 ***

Peridot and Lapis return in a couple of hours, soaked to the skin and swearing, because it started to rain, and they had to run home with all their might and speed, trying not to stumble or slip on dirt. They face Connie right on the doorstep and a friendly wave to her, glancing at Steven, who have no idea what they are hinting at.

\- Are you not going to accompany her home? - Peridot asks, squeezing the sleeves of her jacket when the door closes. - It's raining.

\- She has an umbrella with her, and there's a bus stop nearby, - Steven replies. - Did you finish all the business?

Peridot snorts and smoothes her wet hair, usually carefully laid with gel.

\- Yep. And you, it turns out, have a normal orientation...

Steven freezes and looks at Peridot as if she had just confessed to murder Kennedy.

\- Sorry, what?

\- You have too many pink t-shirts and shirts... Okay, okay, I'm joking. Lapis, save me!

Lapis only shakes her head and tells Steven that because of such jokes he has full rights to color Peridot's face. With a marker. While she is sleeping.

Therefore Peridot doesn't sleep on this night.


	5. 5.

Lapis spends at least an hour in the bathroom, splashing around and making a bath with a bunch of foam, and she pays most of the bill for water. In contrast, Peridot pays for light more than others, because she spends almost all free time on the computer, especially at night, when everyone else is asleep.

But the main thing in all this, is that Lapis likes to sing in the shower, completely without embarrassment, and knowing full well that everyone can hear her. Steven thinks it's incredibly cool, because Lapis's voice is beautiful, and the songs she sings are his favorites, but his most important observation that is Peridot often takes off her headphones when Lapis is in the bathroom and sometimes she even stands next to the door, listening. Steven is sure that until he arrived, Peridot spent much more time next to the door than now.

Once Peridot doesn't notice anything except Lapis's singing, and Lapis, leaving the bathroom, accidentally hits her with a door on her nose, and immediately asks, why Peridot is standing there, directly asking for a hit. Peridot, holding her nose, answers that she needed a bathroom, and "some people sit there for hours".

\- You could just come in, I never close the door on the latch.

Peridot blushes and barks that while Lapis is in there, her legs will not be in the bathroom, and Lapis only shrugs and goes to her room, with water dripping from her hair to the floor.

Steven no longer doubts that Peridot is head over heels in love with Lapis, but Peridot herself will eat her glasses rather than admit it.

Steven doesn't know what Lapis thinks about this, but he really wants to know, and in the evening, with a cup of tea, while Peridot is playing shooters with someone on the net, he asks about everything directly, and Lapis just throws up her eyebrows and says, that she knows about Peridot's feelings for a long time.

\- It's hard not to notice ... - she says, and sips her tea, the same one Steven once gave her, and the same one she really likes. Even Peridot sometimes succumbs to Steven's entreaties and drinks it along with them on weekends, although she usually doesn't drink anything except coffee.

\- And what do you think? More precisely, what do you feel?

Lapis smiles mysteriously and glances at the Peridot killing someone in the shooter.

\- I think we'll find out soon enough.

Peridot, as if feeling someone else's gaze, turns and removes the headphones, squintes, trying to look at them with tired eyes from the computer.

\- Are you drinking that poison again?

Steven nods and raises a mug.

\- Would you like to join us?

Peridot snorts, stretches out on a chair and gets up, grunting like an old woman because of her stiff legs.

\- Why the hell not.

Steven laughs and pulls out another teabag of "Lotus Breeze" which everyone like. Peridot sits on a chair next to Lapis, and Steven can't wait to see how their story will continue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The secret of the title is revealed xD  
> http://greenfieldtea.co.uk/products/gerbalnaya-kollektsiya/lotus-breeze.html  
> It's very tasty tea. Although I still drink only coffee. Sometimes green tea. Sometimes whiskey. It does not matter :D  
> Don't worry, one of them will soon surrender and confess feelings. Soon ^____^


	6. 6.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to use quotes, and holy shit it's so unusual for me xD  
> I hope I didn't screw up.

Steven brings Connie home next Sunday, аnd Peridot no longer sees any reason to run away from the apartment, as if there was a fire. She says "Hi," being happy that now at least someone is as short as she, and hides in Lapis's room, and Lapis herself doesn't react in any way, only flips through the page of the book, lying in a hammock. Peridot falls face down on the couch, taking off her glasses so as not to fall on them.

"Even Steven has a girlfriend..." She mutters into the pillow, and Lapis nervously twitches.

"Well, find yourself a girlfriend," Lapis tries to read further, but still reads the same sentence, unable to concentrate.

"It's easy to say...", Peridot grumbles, stretched out on the couch. "I'm sure that no one needs me."

Lapis really wants to throw the book at Peridot’s head, but she is holding herself back.

“Plus, the object of my desires is too gorgeous, and someone like me beside her will look incredibly stupid.”

Lapis nearly falls off the hammock and regrets that Steven doesn’t hear this. He certainly couldn’t stand such a thing and would say everything that he thinks.

"Why don't you confess, instead of lying here like a corpse and whining?"

Peridot turns away and pulls her knees towards her.

"I will... soon. When I go and buy myself a couple of balls."

"Do it as soon as possible," Lapis sighs, and immediately adds "You annoy me with your "I'm in love" face."

Peridot obscenely barks in response, and they spend some time in silence, in which only the rustle of the pages of the book is heard, which Lapis tries to read and not think about how cute the enamored Peridot looks. Lapis thinks that she is a terrible person, because she knows about everything and is silent, and gives herself the promise to take the first step if Peridot doesn't deign to do it in the coming week.

"By the way, you have a cozy room..." Peridot hugs the pillow and turns over on her stomach, examining the room.

A pair of cactuses and violets on the windowsill, neat piles of books, wallpaper pasted with white and blue paper butterflies. The couch on which Lapis never sleeps, and a hanging hammock almost in the middle of the room. Everything is quite neat and clean. In Peridot and Steven's room you can really break your legs, stumbling over a pile of disks, books, soft toys and clothes, and the path from the kitchen to the computer with a plate in hand is a whole strip of obstacles for Peridot.

"If you like it - move in..." Lapis says indifferently, not immediately realizing what she is saying.

"And Steven, I think, needs more space, why should he live with a woman of twenty-two, when he's sixteen and has a girlfriend... Wait, what? Move in?"

Lapis bites her tongue, but remains satisfied with this accident. This is the first step, isn't it?

"Move in."

Peridot blinks rapidly and looks at the calm Lapis with her mouth open.

"No kidding?"

"No kidding."

Peridot jumps up and, almost pushing Lapis out of the hammock, flies out of the room shouting "Steven, help me to drag the computer!"

Lapis pokes her face in the book and tries not to squeak with joy.

Steven isn't saddened by the fact that Peridot decides to leave him alone in the room at all.

 


	7. 7.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot is a cute dork, Lapis is... Dunno xD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that was a big piece for translation xD   
> the chapter is short (as always) but ugh...   
> comments are welcome, thank you!

Stubbornness often helps Peridot in life. She insisted that she would go to this very university, and her parents let her go, resigned to the fact that she couldn't be persuaded. She argues with the teachers, proving her rightness, and often she is released with a credit only so that she stops detaining the other students. And many, many other things. Peridot considers her stubbornness almost the best of her features.

And she stubbornly decides to stay with Lapis in the same room, despite all the problems that she faces almost immediately.

(Well, Lapis herself has no problems at all.)

The first "alarm bell” is already happening at the first night, when the loud noise wakes Peridot up, and she fumbles in the dark on the nightstand next to the couch, looking for glasses. Finds them, sleepily looks around, and, seeing the cause of the noise, doesn't know whether to swear or to turn on the camera.

Lapis, spending in a hammock almost all her free time, can easily crash in sleep from the same hammock, and, most importantly, doesn't even wake up, remaining to snort on the floor.

"Seriously, Lapis?" Peridot rubs her eyes under the glasses and shakes Lapis's shoulder.

_Zero reaction._

The first problem, Peridot notes in her head - Lapis can't be quickly woken up.

The second problem is revealed when Peridot's eyes get used to the dark, and she understands with horror and admiration, that Lapis sleeps just in pajama shorts, without a T-shirt or at least something, damn it. In the dim moonlight, somehow making its way through the curtain, Lapis looks great, just take a pencil and sketch this, it will be a masterpiece.

Peridot can't take her eyes off, can't move, because _oh God_ , she hasn't ever seen anything more beautiful than this.

"Oh my stars..." she breathes at last, throwing a blanket on the shivering Lapis, and, leaning close to her ear, loudly calls her by name.

Lapis wraps herself in a blanket with her head and refuses to wake up.

Peridot, grinding her teeth, throws off a pillow from the hammock, which Lapis immediately grabs, without opening her eyes. The rest of the night Peridot doesn't sleep, how can she sleep, _the hell is this_.

In the morning, Lapis isn't even surprised that she wakes up on the floor, behaves as if everything is in order, but Peridot's red eyes still attract her attention.

"Do you often fall from a hammock?" Peridot gathers books in her backpack, yawning and swaying, because this was the second night almost without sleep, but in the first one she consciously played and programmed, and this night was very strange.

"Sometimes..." Lapis shrugs, dressing and regretting that she can’t skip the university again, and for a couple of days she has to be a good girl, to avoid being expelled.

"Maybe you won't?" Peridot doesn't know how this will work, but considers it right to say this. "I'm afraid that one day you will fall and break your neck."

Lapis freezes with a shirt in her hands.

_So she worries not because of the noise ..._

Lapis turns away, suppressing the desire to exhale " _how cute_ " and hiding a smile in her sleeves.

"We can't change places, you'll fall out too... And the floor is cold and tough. We can expand the couch, there is enough room for two, if you don't kick in your sleep.”

Lapis says this in an ordinary tone, looking thoughtfully at the room and the couch, and sleepy Peridot understands everything only in the evening, when Lapis expands a couch, which now occupies almost half of the room. It's really big, and there's enough room for two, and Peridot happily exhales, going to bed early, because she really wants to rest.

The third problem is revealed at the very morning, when Peridot's inner alarm clock wakes her up at 6:00 AM and for couple of seconds Peridot doesn’t understand what is happening, and then jumps aside, to the very edge of the couch.

Lapis falls out from a hammock because she spins in her sleep, and it seems that not only spins, and also tries to grab everything that lies next to her. In this case - Peridot herself.

Peridot thinks that it is extremely funny to feel simultaneously an unearthly happiness and a chilling fear. Lapis snuffles in her sleep and gropes for something that could be hugged; Peridot squeezes into the edge of the couch, and, in the end, jumps up from it.

Lapis still sleeps just in shorts, even in one bed with someone. Peridot thinks that she won't survive until the end of the week with such pressure on her heart.

Lapis chuckles quietly, striking out the days on the calendar.


	8. 8.

Peridot builds a wall of pillows between herself and Lapis, not to wake up in her arms anymore, and thinks she's a complete idiot, because she voluntarily abandons what she likes. She gets up even earlier and doesn't sleep well, inventing and developing plans for a conversation with Lapis, and Lapis herself, sipping tea with Steven, patiently waits for it.

Steven is in complete confusion about this situation. No, it is good for him to live alone, he likes that his roommates made some steps to each other, but it seems to him that everything could be better. Connie, who comes now every weekend, already somehow asked if his roommates were dating, and he, grinding his teeth, had to admit, that not yet.

By the way, he himself can't say clearly what is happening between him and Connie, because well, they are together all day in school, they play in the console on weekends, sometimes go for a walk, but is there anything special about this, or is it quite ordinary? Both Connie and Steven had no normal friendship with someone, and they have no idea, what is normal and what is not.

Peridot, who really wants to see Steven and Connie dating, thinks that she should do something with her own feelings first of all, and not get into someone else's. She is almost confessing, she is already making a step towards Lapis, but damn her indecision, because of which she surrenders again, yelling in the pillow half a night.

Lapis crosses out Thursday on the calendar.

***

Peridot spends whole Friday at the University, then - in Steven's room playing the console, but soon realizes that it's time.

"Steven..." she says as she is sentenced to death, rising from the couch, “Can you wear headphones and not take them off for a while?”

Steven looks at her in surprise, and Peridot has to explain, feeling how her cheeks start to blush.

"Now I will either have the best evening of my life, or I will be killed. In any case, it may be ... Noisy."

Steven says a meaningful "aaaah..." and shows her a thumb. Peridot takes a deep breath and exhales, thinking that she would rather move in to Steven's room again, if Lapis says "no" to her, than conceal these feelings again and again.

Lapis lies in a hammock with a book, when Peridot enters the room and closes the door behind her.

_Keep calm._

"Lapis, can we talk?"

Lapis closes the book and even climbs out of the hammock, standing a few steps from the Peridot. Crosses arms over her chest and looks expectantly, and because of this look Peridot's knees are shaking.

"I, uh... I think I have... Some kind of, ehm... Feelings for you."

Peridot looks like she is going to die right now, and Lapis for some instant wants to begin to ask her about everything, ask something like "what?" or "what do you mean?", but decides that it is enough.

Lapis grabs her by the collar of the hoodie and pushes against the wall, looking from above, and Peridot tries to fuse with the wallpaper, looking on Lapis like a rabbit on a snake. Lapis leans her forehead against Peridot's, not letting go of the collar.

"Wh-what are you doing?" Peridot asks, and Lapis leans even closer.

"Waiting for you to finally kiss me. Is it really that hard?"

Peridot closes her eyes and mentally makes a little note, that if she wakes up now, she need to go in the bar and drink something. But Lapis feels so real, and Peridot simply leans forward, reducing the already minimal distance between their lips, and feels Lapis smiling through a kiss. Feels Lapis’s palms on her cheeks. Peridot rises to the toe, hugs her by neck and doesn't want to wake up.

Lapis is glad that she didn't wait for Sunday, because tomorrow they don't have to go anywhere, they can... They can do a lot of things.

Peridot pulls away to breathe, but Lapis kisses her again, and the innocence of the previous kiss is replaced by passion and desire. For Peridot, who has never kissed before, everything is so new, strange and pleasant, that thoughts fly out of her head almost instantly, and she simply allows Lapis to lead.

They interrupt after a few minutes (or seconds?), and Lapis looks with satisfaction as Peridot tries to restore her breath holding onto Lapis’s shoulders.

"I think it can be regarded as "I love you, Lapis, be my girlfriend?"”

Peridot turns off the light in the room, and the only light source now is the laptop on the desk.

“Yes, damn you.”

Steven in the other room takes off the headphones, and, hearing the silence, smiles happily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is it xD  
> Congratulation to them. And to me xD  
> I think I'll take a small break from translation. I need to write a chapter in my novel in Russian TT.TT   
> Also it's hard to speak Russian to me now xD  
> Too much English in my life.   
> See you in a couple of days!


	9. 9.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who is back.   
> Yep.   
> This fic now has 14 chapters in Russian.   
> Uuuugh.   
> Comments will give me some more stimulus to continue the translation. Also thank you for the kudos <3

Peridot wakes up late in the morning, when the sun shines directly into the eyes. She sharply sits down on the bed, but soon remembers that today is Saturday, day off, and, _ohmyfuckinggod_ , she confessed her feelings for Lapis yesterday, and these feelings, _OHMYFUCKINGGOD_ , turned out to be mutual. Peridot turns to Lapis, who is still peacefully asleep by her side, and can't believe her happiness.

They talked all night, sitting comfortably under the blanket, right? They touched each other gently, embracing like something most valuable on the whole Earth, it wasn't just a dream? She woke up, but was it all true? Peridot lays down next to Lapis, fingers running into soft blue hair, and pokes her nose in the top of Lapis's head. Even if it was a dream, it was something wonderful and unforgettable.

Lapis sleepily mutters something about the fact that there is no need to go anywhere, that even if it's midday, she wants to sleep on, wraps Peridot's waist with her hands, not letting her go anywhere, and Peridot, firstly, is especially glad that Lapis went to sleep in a T-shirt,  _FINALLY_.

Secondly, she is happy to death that everything wasn’t a dream.

"It's almost 11 AM," Peridot whispers, glancing at the watch and knowing perfectly well that Lapis can sleep through the evening, but she herself doesn't know how to sleep so much. Although, here, in this case, she doesn't want to get up. Who the hell wants to get up, when Lapis Lazuli sleeps, buried in your chest? Only an idiot.

Lapis wakes up at noon, yawning and stretching, and with a very pleased expression on her face looks at the embarrassed Peridot, not taking hands off her waist.

"Good morning," she says, and gently touches Peridot’s lips with hers, nuzzles in her neck, obviously enjoying how Peridot loses speech power and everything else.

"Morning..." Peridot mutters, knowing full well that Lapis just likes to tease her. Well, she doesn't mind. She fell in love with Lapis, who teased her because of growth, nerdiness and so on. Lapis, which was more beautiful than anyone in the world, and which, in the intervals between mockery, was kinder than anyone. Which protected her from all kinds of assholes in the University, and made black coffee in the evenings, that Peridot wouldn’t fall asleep, making two homework.

Lapis herself refers her feelings to Peridot as "indescribable gratitude" to which the opportunity to fall asleep together and kiss is a pleasant bonus. Lapis understands that it's pretty bad, that she can't say "I love you", but it seems to her that it will come with time.

Peridot was the only one who supported her in a difficult and, frankly, crappy moment of life, when she just wanted to die. They didn't communicate until that moment, when Peridot just stumbled on Lapis sitting near the dormitory, which was kicked out for some trifle, such as smoking on the balcony. They kicked her out at the very moment when everything was disgusting and bad.

Peridot needed someone to rent an apartment together, and a pretty girl from her group seemed to her a good option. Lapis didn't care where to go, just not back home, and not again in the fucking dormitory, where everyone says nasty things behind your back, and the concierge yells so that it rings in your ears.

Peridot put only one condition - not to smoke, and Lapis surprisingly quickly quit smoking. Although, Peridot still thinks that Lapis with a cigarette looked somehow special and even a bit sexy, but, alas, she is allergic to smoke and tobacco. Lapis wasn’t particularly upset, it's just a bad habit, from which she was going to get rid of.

"Maybe we'll get up?" Peridot whispers plaintively, not used to spend so much time in bed, and hears from Lapis only an ominous giggle. "Lapis?"

Lapis smiles innocently and puts her hands under Peridot's long T-shirt, touching her tummy, and, _ohmyfuckinggod_ , Peridot blushes charmingly and tries to squeeze into the edge of the couch.

"Saturday," Lapis says shortly, and holds her palms higher.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No nsfw for you, guys, I'm just a naive kid...


	10. 10.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a little collage for this work  
> http://imgur.com/a/Dt9EO  
> Hope you'll like it too xD

December is painfully long, and in the beginning of the finals, tests and other bustle Peridot wants to bite each person, who once sarcastically joke about the "hot night", because Lapis- _motherfucker_ -Lazuli absolutely doesn't know how to calculate the strength of her bites, and hickey on her neck (size of a ping-pong ball) can't be hidden even with concealer.

But there was nothing between them, they aren't teenagers who have reached the forbidden fruit and who need hot nights after the first kiss, they are adults who perfectly understand, that everything has its time. But people need to mock around, as if this is not a university, but a kindergarten for over-grown children.

Peridot clenches teeth and breaks a rule in the palm, already the third for December, and this time not even her own, but Steven, who lent her a pencil case. Connie prepares Steven for examinations at the school, and Peridot sometimes wants to trade with Steven, so she was told about everything with a cup of coffee too. But in these bloody finals Period needs to study three times as much, and help Lapis- _motherfucker_ -Lazuli, who has a chance to fly out of the university, like a cork from a bottle of cheap champagne.

"Do you want me to beat all of them?" Lapis smiles and looks at the people around in an _extremely friendly_ way.

Peridot is silent and looks like a beaten puppy. Lapis takes her hand and pulls along the long corridor to the exit, presumably to steal her from the last lesson and roll in the snow, and then watch how funny Peridot will shake and grumble.

Peridot turns to the right, and Lapis understands, that even she will have to go to the lesson, because "shit, show the teacher your face, Lapis, for the first time in a semester."

"Hey, Lazuli, found herself a nerd so as not to fly out of the university for skipping?"

The girls from the parallel group laugh, and, even if Lapis likes Peridot's grumpy face, right now this "joke" seems to her to be foul. With obvious intentions to polish a couple of faces she takes a step forward, but Peridot tightly squeezes her hand and doesn't let her go.

"But she, unlike you, will not be expelled." Peridot says mockingly and pulls Lapis into the audience.

Lapis can't find the right words for a couple of minutes.

"I adore you, you know?" she says in the end, and Peridot wearily puts her head on Lapis’ shoulder, breathes a simple "yep" and asks to wake her up as soon as the teacher comes in.

There is a week until the end of the finals.

Two weeks until the New Year.

And Peridot really wants to go through all of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, Peridot can be salty too.  
> Today I wrote chapter 15 in Russian and "the fuck why, how I will translate all this shit?" xD  
> I think it will be at least 20 chapters. But then my dear friend will say "omfg I created a headcanon, you should write about it!". And then it'll be 21 chapter.  
> Any way, thank you guys for comments and kudos!  
> (I have 22 kudos on russian website for 15 chapters, and 54 here for 9, wtf xD)


	11. 11.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your kudos and comments guys, hope you'll like this chapter ^___^

When the exams are passed, the tests are marked, and Lapis is sure that she wasn't expelled for skipping, everything more or less subsides, running stops, and all that Peridot wants now it's to sit with a blanket on her shoulders, and play the console all day long.

Steven has the same opinion, he passed the exams with difficulty, and because of him, Connie nearly failed her own exams. She spent a lot of time to explain to him the material that she herself knew for a long time. But Connie has an acceptable high mark, so that her parents are happy, and Steven has acceptable normal mark, so as not to worry about re-taking and enjoy the atmosphere of the approaching holiday. New Year in three days, gifts to all are bought and securely hidden.

A ticket home, to dad and relatives, are also bought.

"So when do you have your bus?" Peridot asks carelessly, without taking her eyes off the game.

"Tomorrow night. I'll be home in the morning."

"And don't you regret leaving your girlfriend alone for a holiday?.."

"She is not ..." Steven lowers the controller and looks thoughtfully at the ceiling; his car on the console screen graphically crashes into a pillar and explodes. "Peridot, what does "dating" mean?"

Peridot throws up her eyebrows in surprise, but doesn't get distracted from the game. She looks at the screen for a couple of minutes, and then sighs and pauses.

"I don't think I can answer you. Are we dating with Lapis? We _live_ together. This isn't called "dating". Ask Lapis, maybe she'll tell you.”

Lapis, as if feeling that they are talking about her, appears in the room, crawls under the Peridot's blanket, and, listening the indignant "Laaaaapis, I'm going to lose the game" conveniently gets on Peridot's knees. Steven has already used to this and no longer tries to close his eyes, dump somewhere or simply be embarrassed. It's normal.

Lapis arches her back like a cat, stretching, and Peridot with all her endurance and patience tries to concentrate on the game, although this is DAMN difficult, _oh god_.

"Lapis, what does "dating" mean?" Steven's tone sounds like he asks "where do the children come from?", and Lapis chuckles, but thinks about it.

“"Dating" doesn't necessarily mean "love". A lot of people are dating just for the sake of some benefit. They say false phrases, and when the benefits are received, they disappear. I would choose the expression "the desire to be together." When you think about a person all your free time, when you want to hug him and say how much you miss him when he is not around.”

Steven sighs helplessly, staring at the ceiling, and Lapis smiles encouragingly.

"Hey, you're only sixteen. Don't think about that."

Steven would be glad not to think, but he can't. These feelings are completely new for him, and it seems to him that nothing will help him, except for a frank conversation face to face, when he returns after the holidays.

And he will prepare for it. Maybe even will write a song with his dad's help.

"And do you really miss me that much?" asks Peridot, still not losing the game, and Lapis seemed to have been waiting for this question all this time.

"Of course," she whispers languorfully in her ear, and the lettering "Game Over" on the whole screen doesn't make anyone wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I completely forgot that in the States they celebrate Christmas more than the New Year.  
> Pls forgive and don' t kill me xD  
> We celebrate Christmas on January 7th


	12. 12.

On the evening of December 31 Peridot regrets only that they don't live in a big house with a fireplace, near which you could lie on a bear's skin, looking at the fire and cuddling. Although you can cuddle sitting on a spread out couch, in front of a laptop with New Year comedies. Champagne is poured on ordinary mugs, because of the lack of beautiful glasses, but who cares, when you want to laugh, dance and jump to the ceiling.

Pi-pi-pi, the clock rings, showing that the first of January has come.

Pi-pi-pi, comes SMS with congratulations and indication of the place of the hidden gift from Steven.

They laugh, climb under the bed and take out a large parcel with a postcard, in which is written only "Be happy, Happy New Year!", and in the parcel - a big terry turquoise plaid, incredibly soft, and with painted starfish.

Peridot says that this is clearly a hint, and immediately throws plaid on their shoulders, right in the middle of the room, on the floor, completely not caring about anything else.

"It's weird," Peridot says thoughtfully, stretching her legs. "In September, I hardly knew you, and now you are the first person I see in the new year."

"And the first one you kiss," Lapis giggles, and Peridot melts, when lips touch gently.

It's hot not because of a plaid or champagne.

“By the way, by the way ...” Peridot doesn't want to get out from under the plaid, but it's New Year, it is necessary to give gifts, it's time, and she, overcoming herself, rises and gives a hand to Lapis. "Let's go."

Peridot leads her to Steven's room, to the closet, asks to stand in front of it and opens the door, and a huge fluffy soft cat falls into Lapis' hands, made of plush, and very, very nice. Lapis looks surprised and joyful at the same time, and Peridot hastens to explain this choice of gift.

"Ah, well ... You like to hug something in a dream, and I'll be on conferences in January-February for a week... Probably. So, it'll be comfortable for you to sleep without me.”

Lapis buries her face in a furry cloth and smiles happily. She is really happy - in her childhood toys were a rarity, especially so big ... It's a great feeling.

"Thank you," she whispers, unable to hold the smile. "It's lovely, I like it very much."

The cat occupies a place in a hammock, in which no one is asleep, and even in a small room a toy almost as tall as Peridot looks perfect, as if it always was there. Lapis appreciates this beauty, and then squeezes Peridot in embraces, because, dammit, she doesn't know where to put all these emotions.

"Well, now it's my turn to give out presents."

Lapis draws a small bag from her closet and hands it to Peridot.

The inscription " _This adorable little nerd belongs to Lapis Lazuli_ " on a long green T-shirt gives Peridot a laugh and a strange desire whether to strangle Lapis or to confess in love for her again. T-shirt is long almost to the knee, it's more like in what you can sleep in, and Peridot is sure that Lapis thought exactly about it.

This inscription is not for someone at the university to know the obvious thing. It is for her to know and remember it herself.

It's in Lapis' style – to tease, but do it goddamn cute.

And her grin is like a confirmation.

"Great. I'll wear it on holidays," Peridot snorts, and Lapis has a very cunning look.

"It is a holiday today. Go on."

Peridot sighs, but rather for the note, shows the tongue and hides in the bathroom, leaving there already in a T-shirt, and Lapis almost catch a heart attack. Too. Mother. Of. God. Cute.

Lapis gulps down the remains of champagne from a mug, snaps the light switch and takes a deep breath. This night, no matter how long it will be, she isn't going to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy fucking New Year in the middle of May.  
> Why not, it was snow in the Moscow 2 days ago.  
> Anyway, hope you guys liked this chapter.


	13. 13.

Peridot always has very strange and uncomfortable feelings without her clothes on. It seems to her that there is nothing attractive and special in her body to wear something open or walk around the house just in shorts, and every look in the mirror reminds her, that she is a complete mediocrity and nothing of herself. Peridot always wears jeans, a shirt with long sleeves, and hates summer, when it's hot and you need to undress or you'll die.

Waking up next to Lapis, Peridot at first doesn't understand what this feeling is, why it's a bit cold and _ohmygod_ where are the clothes, and then she remembers the night, giving out nothing but a helpless embarrassed squeak.

That was… _awesome_. And though the hickeys on the neck (god, Lapis loves to leave them) won't disappear for a week, it seems to Peridot that she didn't feel anything more wonderful in her life. And it's not even about the first sex - it was, of course, important, but Peridot thinks that she never trusted anyone as much as to allow someone to touch her everywhere. And no one before this didn't allow her to do the same thing (although she never wanted to touch anyone, but with Lapis-too-fucking-cool-Lazuli it was impossible not to think about this).

Lapis peacefully sleeps next to her, pulling the blanket to the very top of her head, and Peridot remembers her yesterday's whisper in her ear, thin cold fingers under the T-shirt, lips on her neck and shoulders, and buries her face in the pillow, helplessly and happily chuckling. After an endless amount of shit in her life, after months of depression, and then months of "to confess or not," life finally rewarded her for everything.

And Lapis' feelings were the best reward for Peridot for everything.

Peridot as quietly as possible gets out of bed, trying not to wake Lapis, finds her new T-shirt in the corner of the room, dresses and sits down at the computer. It's almost three o'clock in the afternoon, and Peridot knows, that her body would just die to sleep until the evening, and that the head doesn't hurt - it is necessary to wake up normally. Lapis, of course, can sleep like a ferret all day, and Peridot doesn't intend to wake her up.

Lapis wakes up herself, sweetly yawns and blindly stumbles across the bed, looking for something to pull to her and hug. She finds a big soft cat, which Peridot prudently left in her place, and Lapis for a while lies in an embrace with it, and then looks piteously at Peridot, who diligently pretends, that she doesn't notice anything, except the page of the website.

"How does it feel?" with a foxy smile asks Lapis, sitting down in bed, covering her naked chest with a blanket, knowing full well that it isn't necessary, and Peridot tries not to blush, although she can't control this process.

"It was... Not bad."

" _Not bad_? At "not bad" you don't ask "more" and don't say "I love you" every..."

“GODDAMMIT LAPIS!”

Lapis laughs and, wrapped in a blanket, approaches the nightmarishly confused Peridot, hugs her shoulders and leans to her ear. Peridot shivers.

"Wanna do it again?" Lapis whispers softly.

Peridot wants to die.

And to do it again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> embarrassed Peridot is my life  
> plot? what plot? xD  
> thank you for kudos and comments guys, have a nice day :3


	14. 14.

Holidays are lazy and delightful, but the real life reminds of itself, pulling Peridot to colloquiums and conferences almost from the bed and from Lapis' hands. “This is the fate of the best student of the faculty” everything Peridot can say, packing her belongings in a backpack and wildly regretting that she didn't begin to skip classes in the first week of the first year, so now don't suffer for the whole fucking faculty. Although, without her Lapis would be expelled from the university, which is extremely undesirable, especially now.

Lapis smiles and squeezes a soft cat, sadly realizing that for several days it will be a substitute, although very believable - with a funny displeased muzzle, shaggy and warm.

"Don't miss me." Peridot gives her a goodbye kiss, and the door behind her closes with some special dreary creak.

Lapis Lazuli simply can't stand being taken away from something or someone, to which she is attached. So it went from childhood, spent far beyond the city, with parents who treated her completely not as parents, friends, who appeared only in the summer when people come to a summer house on a barbecue, and her own loneliness. Lapis loved this loneliness, allowing not everyone to join her, and not daring not to let the parents, constantly invading her personal space.

"You can't communicate with these children," they said, and Lapis never saw the newly acquired and hard-to-find friends.

"You can't keep animals," and Lapis never saw the lop-eared red puppy brought home again.

God, she hated her life, in which she wasn't allowed to do something that her parents didn't like. Escape to the first university under the pretext of a good education seemed to be the only way out, and it worked, even somehow too well. And Lapis knows more than anyone else that if everything goes on well for a long time, then soon everything will definitely become lousy.

After the third missed call in skype from parents, messages to the mobile phone begin to pour, and Lapis frowns, hiding her face in the fluffy wool of a toy. She doesn't want to respond. But Lapis, being a person of adequate (more or less) understands, that if she doesn't respond to her parents, they, damn them, can just come and make a scandal.

She's twenty, mother of god, two, not fifteen, she thinks, and understands perfectly well how Connie lives now.

"I'm fine" she writes in response to the SMS, which are more like an interrogation, rather than normal messages from worried parents. Lapis climbs into a hammock and doesn't want them to get acquainted with Peridot one day. The ideal variant is ... Never. Yes, never is perfect. She doesn't want them to pour a bucket of shit onto Peridot, as they used to do with any person with whom Lapis had once been friends or tried to be together.

But the universe decides to turn everything inside out, and a few days later, on the threshold, tired and bored Peridot encounters a completely unfriendly looking woman, with piercing blue (like Lapis') eyes.

And Steven is here too, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little angst? Weeell, may be.   
> and 1000+ hints, wtf, thank you guys!


	15. 15.

Peridot, tired of fucking conferences and seminars, which for three days was so much that there was no time to eat, wants only one thing - to hug Lapis and not to let her go for at least half an hour.

Steven, deadly missing his roommates, also wants a hug.

But for some reason it seems to both of them that no one will let them sit comfortably in the kitchen, drink tea and talk. The woman on the threshold looks extremely unfriendly, and it costs a huge effort to Peridot to pull a smile on her face and ask "do you want something?".

"Does Lapis Lazuli live in this apartment?" the woman asks in an icy tone, and for a second Peridot thinks that she is from the University, and she came to expel Lapis, but then remembers that Lapis passed all the exams, leaving no debts (for the first fucking time).

"Yes ... And you are?.." Peridot unlocks the door, letting Steven in and holding the door for the woman.

"I'm her mother," she says shortly, passing into the apartment.

Lapis, joyfully came to meet everyone, freezes with an expression of horror and guilt on her face, and Peridot, already stepping towards her, wants immediately push the woman out of the door.

Lapis wears _her_ T-shirt, not the one Lapis gifted to her, another, sky-blue with white spots-clouds, and Peridot, if it were not for strangers, would say "it looks wonderful on you, better than on me." On Lapis in general, everything looks wonderful (and the lack of clothes too).

"H-hello, Mom," Lapis chokes out of herself, depicting at least some, even fake-looking joy. "How do you…"

"I came to the dormitory, but there they told me that you were kicked out for _smoking_ six months ago. Why do I know about this only now?" the woman frowns, spitting out the words, and Lapis unconsciously takes a step back.

Peridot never saw her so frightened.

"The fact that we don't have time for video conversations with you doesn't mean that you can do everything you want with your appearance. Piercing, blue hair? What's next? Tattoo? We send you money not for this childishness.”

Lapis, who can easily punch someone in the face for insulting her, now looks like she might burst into tears. Peridot throws the bag into the room and stands beside her, looking straight in the woman’s eyes.

"And you live with another girl and some teenager. Moreover, in your dormitory they told me that you are... one of " _these_ ". We brought up a normal daughter, not this... trash."

Peridot weakens the tie, which she decided not to take off after the last conference, and takes a deep breath.

"Now, Mrs. Lazuli, let me speak, and don't interrupt. You are standing on the threshold of MY apartment, and you didn't even bother to introduce yourself and find out who I was, you didn't begin the conversation with a normal greeting so that we could safely go to the kitchen and drink tea. You started talking shit about Lapis without even taking your shoes off. What mother does this? And don't tell me "don't get into our business", I'm worried about ALL problems that concern Lapis, especially in my home. Either tell me directly the purpose of your visit, or get the hell out of here.”

Mrs. Lazuli loses the gift of speech, and she opens and closes her mouth like a fish, indignantly trying to say something. Lapis can't believe that this "cute little nerd" just issued such a speech in her defense.

"This girl lives on our money, and I have every right..."

"You've got fucking nothing" Peridot snarls. "She's twenty-two. You can't tell her what to do. Money? Well, don't sell her anything, she won't even notice it. And before you ask "where will she find money?", I'll tell you that she has enough charisma and mind to earn them herself, and literally two days ago I was invited to work in such services, of which the whole world knows, because I, with a lot of desire and time, can hack NASA. I'll tell you again - either get out, or say directly what do you need.

Mrs. Lazuli throws a withering glance at Lapis.

“And what, you don't say anything? Your mother was just insulted by this petty...”

"Don’t you dare," Lapis hisses, and grasps the Peridot's palm like a lifeline. "Don't you dare say anything about her, or me, and you heard everything yourself. I'm loved here and accepted the way I am, and you just locked my identity somewhere deep inside. I'm not going to listen to you anymore. Enough of me. You can think that I don't exist.”

The woman chokes in her own indignation, barking "you just lost your family, Lapis," and leaves the apartment, slamming the door behind her.

"I didn't," Lapis laughs, looking at Peridot, who is smiling triumphantly. "I didn't know that you are capable of such a speech."

“Well, I didn't know that I can... But she forced me. And you lived with her all the childhood? What a nightmare.”

"Yeah ... Thanks. For defending me." Lapis feels that she begins to cry, and Peridot immediately rushes to hug her. "Now I have only you."

Steven, standing all the time behind the door to his room and decided not to interfere, politely knocks on the doorpost, drawing attention.

"If you are all over, can I also get my dose of hugs? I missed you two."

Lapis smiles through tears, drawing her hands to him, and Peridot murmurs "half an hour hasn't passed, she's only mine."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi there   
> hope you liked this chapter   
> thank you for kudos and comments <3  
> btw I got an inspiration from this: https://www.instagram.com/p/BTH_BBPAxeF/?taken-by=b.tead  
> hope they wouldn't kill me  
> T__T


	16. 16.

Lapis runs her finger along the long, neat scar, from knee to ankle, and Peridot shudders, watching closely Lapis' every movement. The scar, though it is old, is noticeable and stands out on the skin like a thin white line, and Peridot recalls with a grin, how much money and labor was invested in making it so neat, not torn, as was a wound. Lapis leads her fingers to her hip, touching small but also noticeable white marks.

Peridot hates these scars (as well as her whole body), but doesn't feel discomfort from Lapis' touching. It feels... Nice, even if the skin in those places isn't as sensitive as on the rest of the body.

"You never told me where they came from..." Lapis says deeply, as if from a loud sound Peridot can be scared, like a kitten, and would pull the blanket to the very top of her head. "I never even saw them."

"And why do you think I wear closed clothes?" Peridot grins, remembering how terrible and disgustingly it looked at first, how she wanted to just put on three layers of clothes, so that nothing could be seen. “Absolutely uninteresting story about a teen-idiot who didn't notice the red light, and a couple of years of rehabilitation and residual scars. Even simple scratches will turn into scars on me. Hell, that's why I don't have a cat...”

Lapis takes her palm and looks closely, carefully studying fingers and wrists. True, barely noticeable thin scars are visible, while remaining completely intangible when touched. Lapis smiles and puts the palm to her cheek, and Peridot shudders again.

"Why are you so good today?" Peridot tries to pull herself together and not melt, to which Lapis just rubs her nose against the palm and covers her eyes.

"I was just thinking about how good it is that I have you..." Lapis smiles, but after a second a familiar grin replaces this smile. "Well, you know... Not everyone has their own evil dwarf."

Peridot chokes with indignation and hurls a pillow at Lapis. And it seems as if the moment is spoiled, but Peridot doesn't feel angry, although, of course, she promises to push Lapis off the bed and force her to sleep again in a hammock (Lapis shows her tongue and regrets nothing).

And everything is fine, exactly until Steven comes to them and with a joyful smile says that his relative comes to visit him for a couple of days.

"Don't say it's..." Peridot prays, clutching the pillow.

"Pearl!" Steven smiles.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeeeees, PORL  
> I have only 1 chapter in Russian left   
> and a couple of ideas   
> anyway   
> have a good day guys!


	17. 17.

Lapis can't understand in any way, because of what Peridot has a mute hysteric, and why, as if bitten by someone, she rushes to help Steven arrange the things in the room so that you can safely walk without stumbling. All this running around lasts almost half an hour, after which Peridot freezes with the book she wanted to put on the shelf in her hands and closes her eyes, fixing her glasses.

"When does she arrive?" She asks quietly, putting the book on the table.

"Tomorrow evening," Stephen says happily.

Peridot rubs the bridge of her nose, sighs and grins.

"Well, this is _my_ house, why the hell there should be cleanliness for her. And! I'm no longer a child to jerk because of her. Let her come, let's see if she will stand me.”

Lapis still doesn't understand anything.

"And who is she again?" She asks, looking around her own room. The room is not perfect, but clean, paper butterflies are in their places, flowers on the windowsill are poured, books are neatly stacked on the table. “Your ex?”

Peridot swears, indignantly opening her mouth, but can't answer anything sensible for a minute, being interrupted by her own laughter and obscene phrases. She holds her hand against the wall and eventually moves along it.

“She's my former tutor in algebra and physics. That's how I met Steven, I came to Pearl to study, and he was there almost always.”

"Oooh, first love to the tutor?"

“Go to hell.”

Lapis laughs, looking at delighted Steven. Steven smacks the dust off the shelves, humming something under his nose, and Peridot quietly howls to him from her corner. Lapis wants to meet Pearl very much, at least just to say "thank you" for new reasons to tease Peridot.

The next evening, on the threshold of their apartment a tall beautiful girl appears, with a polite smile and a small lady's suitcase behind her. Lapis, expecting at least a middle-aged woman, stutters in greeting, and from this Peridot's heart strangely misses the blow. Pearl embraces Steven, who rushes to her immediately, and walks into the kitchen, sitting down wearily on a chair. Peridot notes that even after a trip in the probably disgusting bus, her movements remain smooth and feminine.

"Are you even getting old?" Peridot asks, pressing the button on the teapot. Pearl snorts, folding her arms over her chest.

"And you don't learn manners in any way. I'm only twenty-eight, and I would ask for some respect for the elders.”

"You sound like you're forty years old."

"And you sound like a teen. Seriously, I should've teach you lessons of good manners instead of physics."

If Steven didn't take this quite normal, Lapis would have thought that a quarrel was about to start, but Steven calmly pours tea and sits down next to them, and Lapis understands that everything, sort of, is in order.

"You should take an example from your girlfriend," Pearl says, as if nothing had happened, addressing Lapis a smile, and Peridot looks at Steven with the dumb question "what the fuck?".

Of course, he told her everything, probably even in details.

Lapis breaks into a smirk, the one after which Peridot usually starts yelling in anger. Peridot herself thinks that she won't survive till the moment when Pearl leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, it's more than 10k words!   
> I know that this is nothing for someone, but I used to write small stories   
> so this is like a achivement   
> 3 chapters till the end, guys xD


	18. 18.

Pearl and Peridot both like to get up early, and already on the next morning after "the arrival" Peridot stumbles on a cooking breakfast Pearl. It's six in the morning, and there is already coffee on the table (two mugs), and Pearl herself masterfully turns over the pancakes, throwing them over the frying pan. Peridot rubs her eyes under the glasses, grumbles sleepy "good fucking morning", and assures herself that all the time that Pearl will stay with them, she will carry Lapis to the university, so as not to leave them alone.

Peridot believes Lapis and believes Pearl, but the disgusting feeling doesn't give her rest.

"Will Lapis get up?" Pearl asks, glancing at the closed door to their room.

"In an hour," Peridot says gloomily, hiding her glance in the coffee mug. Damn, even after so many years Pearl perfectly remembers how much spoonful of sugar she needs.

Lapis, which is awakened to university as if the ceiling would now fall, aren’t happy at all. She planned to spend the day at home, with a book or talking with Pearl about everything, but Peridot pulls her into the university under a whole bunch of pretexts.

"No one will take me away," she snorts, and Peridot hisses through her teeth "it’s not about this", trying not to look in her eyes.

She isn't afraid that Lapis will leave her.

Well, she herself believes in this "I'm not afraid", although in fact, from one thought about it, her knees tremble. In comparison with Pearl, she is still worthless, and this thought gives her no rest, and sometimes she wants to just huddle in a corner and die.

Lapis, with the eternal desire to tease all around, a couple of days thinks that Peridot is just jealous, not noticing how, dammit, she is worried about everything, trying to stay in the usual mood for everyone around. Realization comes with a terrible sense of guilt, because of which she wants to punch herself in a face. It is also bad, because if Pearl hadn't poked her nose into it, by telling the whole situation, Lapis would have continued to think that everything is fine.

"What kind of idiot am I?" Lapis covers her face with her hands, sitting in the kitchen and glancing at her watch every five minutes. Peridot went to help Steven to choose a new guitar, and they are gone for about three hours, as if from a shop they went under the Connie's windows.

"It happens to everyone," Pearl smiles and puts a mug in front of Lapis. "And stop being nervous, Steven wrote that they will return soon."

And so it happens, in about five minutes, these two are tumbling into the apartment, wet in the snow, with smiles and a new guitar in a wooden case. Lapis shakes off the snow from them, listening to their excuses, that they decided to play snowballs, and then it grew into an epic battle, in which, of course, friendship won, although Steven still has much more snow behind the collar. Pearl grumbles that they will catch cold, gives Steven a mug of cocoa and calls to the kitchen, but Steven says that his song is almost ready and he wants to spend the rest of the evening with a guitar.

"Well, if Steven left us..." Pearl opens the lid of the pot, and everyone smells spicy cinnamon, citrus and cloves. Peridot raises her eyebrows questioningly.

“Is this…”

"Mulled wine," Pearl nods. "Since I'm leaving soon, and the snow outside the window... Everything is as it should be."

Lapis smiles and immediately suppresses Peridot's attempt to escape into the room, grabs her hand and asks to spend the evening quietly, and Peridot simply can't say "no". Lapis holds her hand almost all evening, absolutely doesn't care about everything, and Pearl looks at them like a proud older sister. Peridot for the first time in a few days relaxes, allowing easy degrees of mulled wine to turn her head. She puts her forehead against Lapis' shoulder and smiles broadly, holding her hand.

Pearl sends them to bed by midnight, when Lapis is already yawning and falling asleep, and Peridot with a laugh drags her into the room, helping to undress and lie down. Lapis nuzzles in her neck, leading her hands on the Peridot's back, kisses her lips and cheeks, and Peridot doesn't even think of stopping her.

"No one will take me away," Lapis whispers, falling asleep. “And I won't go anywhere"

"Even if it's very cool and beautiful girl?" Peridot snorts, covering them with a blanket.

"I already have one."

Lapis falls asleep before she hears a light sigh and a quiet "...you clod".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be no chapters in 3-4 days. Will be busy =)  
> 2 chapters till the end, and than I'll write a new fic (I guess...)  
> And wow, 100+ kudos, thank you guys! I still have just 29 on a Russian website xDD


	19. 19.

Pearl stays with them for another a week, she has a vacation, and, in her own words, she'd better spend it with Steven than with someone else, and Peridot almost has no objection, because, surprisingly, if Pearl is dragged to the nearest favorite bar at the weekend she is quite a pleasant and funny companion. None of her acquaintances have ever talked about time and space, holding in hand a glass with Tequila Sunrise, and, Peridot is sure, none of her friends would have been able to respond to the same topic. Lapis, holding a cocktail "The Green Fairy", can't believe, that she divides the bed with a nerd, who explains about the curvature of space to another nerd. In the fucking bar at three in the morning.

Well, Peridot no longer worries, and even in the fucking bar at three in the morning, speaking about time and space, she manages to remain that Peridot, which once pulled Lapis from the boundless abyss of depression and hatred. Peridot gently intertwines their fingers and growls at every approaching girl as Cerberus, and suggests hanging on Lapis a sign "mine, do not touch." Lapis laughs and says that she agrees only on the exchange, if Peridot will hang a sign "nerdy property of Lapis Lazuli", and Peridot only snorts at her in return.

When it's time for Pearl to leave, Peridot doesn't even try to hide the smile, which means "get out already". Pearl hugs Steven for a long time, and then, having made a completely teacher's expression on her face, hugs Lapis and Peridot.

"I'm glad you found someone who can tolerate you," Pearl claps Peridot on the shoulder, and, before Peridot freaks out, goes out of the door, leaving Peridot to curse, and Lapis to move along the wall in a fit of laughter.

A day later Peridot regrets that Pearl left so early, because the call from Steven's school catches everyone unawares.

"And what have you done?..” Peridot rubs the bridge of her nose, rereading a very serious paper (for sure) which asks his guardians or parents to come to school.

Steven asks simply to come and listen to what the Headmistress will say, and swears that he didn't kill anyone.

Peridot grins, and on the evening of the "important reception" they with Lapis find themselves at the door of the Headmistress. Evening classes aren't over yet, and some students are still here, and Peridot hears utterly insulting quiet phrases "Steven lives with these?" and "no wonder he's so strange...". Lapis gets angry, and in the end Peridot just releases her hand with the words "my love, please don't kill anyone" and enters the Headmistress' office with her best haughty smile. The Headmistress, it seems, isn't used to this.

"Are you the guardian of Steven Universe?" A tall middle-aged woman asks, and Peridot can't, just can't help gloating. How she hated her school, where almost everyone mocked her! How she once wanted to come and look in the eyes of those, who for so long ignored her complaints about the "I was drowned in the toilet!". Who knew that here will be such a chance.

"I'm his ..." Peridot thinks for a second, glancing at Steven and smiling encouragingly. “Elder sister. What's the matter?”

The Headmistress pursues her lips and looks away, looking somewhere behind Peridot's back.

"Young Mr. Universe hit a classmate at the break today and said... Inappropriate for a decent boy words. I ask you," the Headmistress throws at Peridot almost a contemptuous look,“ or someone older to talk to him about it.”

Peridot bites her lip, trying to laugh. So, this loving pink t-shirts kind child insulted and hit someone? It was necessary to at least insult his whole family to the very ancestors, although, maybe it would be enough to say something bad about Connie. Peridot knows Steven well enough, he's a pacifist to the core, but sometimes something inside him goes wrong way.

And she knows from whom he could get "bad words".

"I see..." Peridot says, and Steven feels with his back that something terrible is coming. "Steven. Why the fuck have you done this?"

In a deathly silence, a plaintive "just not in the face!" is heard outside the door.

"Well, I believe that it is for you, miss, to hold a conversation with your students on the topic "you can't insult the just-coming adults behind their backs" and generally talk with them about their behavior. And we'll talk with Steven, of course."

And before the stunned woman can say something, Peridot walks out the door, and Steven jumps after her, already thinking about his suspension. But it all sounded so epic and cool that he doesn't even get angry. Lapis overtakes them already at the exit from school, incredibly pleased with something. She takes Peridot by the arm, and seems to be singing something quietly.

Steven, looking at this idyll, is incredibly glad that he even came to this city and stayed with them. He is doubly happy the next day, when the classmate, who insulted Connie and with whom Steven nearly got into a fight, publicly apologized.

But is wasn't Steven, who left this guy with a black eye...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ruined my laptop's keyboard, so it took a long to get used to a new one =(   
> anyway, the next chapter will be the last.   
> and I'm happy, because I can finally concentrate in the new idea (epic, I hope xD)   
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	20. 20.

"Everything will be okay," Peridot slaps Steven on the shoulder, and Steven sighs and holds the guitar tightly in his hands. To sing under someone's windows was a novelty, especially under the windows of a girl he likes. Especially realizing that her parents don't really like him. "You rehearsed and prepared so much. She will say "yes"."

Steven nervously smiles and conveniently intercepts the guitar. Peridot pushes him in the back with her palm for the last time and disappears on the playground, which is a little further, so as not to interfere, but, nevertheless, observe. Lapis has long been there, sitting on a swing, lazily swinging back and forth, and Peridot stands behind her, pushing the swing.

"Do you think he will succeed?" Lapis tightens the iron bars more tightly, so as not to fall, because even if Peridot is still not strong enough to shake it highly, Lapis doesn't want to fall, as once in her childhood.

Peridot snorts.

"Of course. These two simply can't decide on something for six months, it's time for someone to take the first step."

"I can say the same about us in the past."

Lapis grins, turning back and noticing the desperate blush on Peridot's cheeks. They have been together for several months, but whenever Lapis mentions something about how stupid Peridot tried to confess to her and was generally afraid to talk about it – that’s all, Peridot overheats.

"Well, I'm sorry, I can't play the guitar and I can't sing under the windows."

Lapis jumps off the swing, shakes herself off, stretches, and then quickly turns out to be very close to Peridot, and Peridot loses her breath. Every time Lapis cuts the distance between them to a minimum Peridot feels like a rabbit near a snake, losing the ability to move and talk. Lapis holds the rod of the swing with one hand, and puts the second hand on Peridot's waist, not allowing her to move back.

"But you can blush charmingly at the perfect moments."

And before Peridot returns her gift of speech, Lapis moves forward and kisses her, and everything Peridot can do is rise on her tiptoes and entangle her fingers in delightfully soft blue hair, marking somewhere on the edge of consciousness that she should grumble for the fact that Lapis doesn't wear a hat. It's early spring, and even if the snow come down, the nasty cold wind insidiously gets under the jacket, giving an excuse to cuddle even closer to each other to keep warm.

They are interrupted by the polite "a-hem", which they hear far from the first time, may be from the fourth, when this less polite "a-hem" is accompanied by a blow to the guitar strings. Peridot twitches, ready to run with "it wasn't me and I don't know this perfectly beautiful girl", but Lapis holds her tightly by the collar of her jacket.

Steven smiles broadly, throwing his guitar on his shoulder.

"It's a kid’s playground," he says theatrically, pointing his tongue.

"Peridot looks like a kid, tho," Lapis laughs, not letting Peridot escape and swear. "How was it?"

Steven shows his thumb and laughs happily.

"As I said!" Peridot proudly pronounces, giving him five. "You're doing fine. And now let's go home, I think I froze my ears."

"It seems to me that it was quite hot here before I came..." Steven teases, and an embarrassed couple instantly pretends that they have no idea what he is talking about. “Let's go. Only, first, we'll go to the store. We ran out of tea.”

Steven turns to Connie's windows, waves his hand and sends out kisses.

Connie responds the same, making her parents nervous, but not paying any attention to it.

In the coming twilight they return home, holding behind Steven, who plays something on the guitar right on the run. Hand in hand, confident that even if life will send them difficulties and obstacles, they will pass through everything.

Together.

(If, of course, Lapis will stop joking about growth every N-minutes.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, guys, I made it. Wow.   
> Thanks everyone, who supported this translation. You have no idea how I enjoyed it.   
> I hope you liked this fic, and will like my next idea.  
> Special thanks to NotAlone, who made me feel that this fic is nice xD (Take your time and return to Skype, ffs xD)  
> And HUGE thanks to my dear friend, who made a fanart, I'm diying, because omfg I don't deserve this: https://gaypompeii.tumblr.com/post/161136029695/my-bro-kiradillinger-just-finished-her  
> You can find me on tumbr, it's http://kiradillinger.tumblr.com  
> Or in twitter: @tired_knight  
> see you, guys!


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